Friday, September 7, 2012

Help Doctors Without Borders in a BlogTV Marathon

You want to help save the world, right? Well, perhaps you can't be Superman, but you can help with the many good charitable and recovery groups. And one of the great ones is Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders. It's a great emergency relief group that is efficient, goes where they are needed including the worst places in the world, and is completely secular. The people involved put their lives at risk to provide medical care to those that have had their lives turned upside down by natural disaster or ongoing civil war.

And you can help them raise money this weekend. For what I think is the third time in a row, many of the big names in YouTube and atheism/humanism will be running a BlogTV marathon for 24 hours trying to raise money for MSF. They have direct donations which is tallied up, and there is an e-Bay auction of various items, from books to signed photographs to a stay at a southwestern ranch. Here is one item up for auction:

The MSF charity marathon is being run, once again, by the excellent DPR Jones of Great Britain, who also tends to run the Magic Sandwich Show. Over the years, his work has earned over $100,000 for MSF, and he has gotten excellent guests, both big names on YouTube such as AronRa and Potholer54, but also Eugene Scott, Lawrence Krauss, A.C. Grayling, and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

The events begin on Saturday, Sept 8th at 4 PM Greenwich Mean Time (11 AM Eastern Standard). And it will all be here.

So donate. Do it! You can do it here or here or here. And again, there is the auction with over 100 items up for bidding.

Donations will stop being taken through the marathon later on the 9th, but some of the auction items will go on longer. And you better bid on those things, because I have; try bidding and you force me to give more.

And while I mention giving for a good cause, also consider the Light the Night walks starting this September. This is another secular charity cause, trying to raise $1 million for research on cancer. If you hate cancer, and if you are secular (or not), get to know these walkers and help them or donate. Help work with another great organization, Foundation Beyond Belief. There is also a matching program; every dollar donated up to $500,000 will be matched; that means $500,000 donated will equal $1,000,000. And it fights cancer. You don't like cancer, do ya?

So much good to do. So little time. But if you have the money to spare, please help out these awesome organizations that really do git er done.